


The Sharpest Lives

by hitsuaya



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Comfort/Angst, Dubious Ethics, Jonathan said gay rights, M/M, Philosophy, abandoning canon for fun and profit, making up the lore as we go, so much blood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22757617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitsuaya/pseuds/hitsuaya
Summary: Throwing down the shackles of fate is a wondrous act.It opens all paths,even the ones that are darkand full of dangers.Mary Reid lives and this gives Jonathan the permission to take delight in the new role that was thrust upon him.
Relationships: Geoffrey McCullum/Jonathan Reid
Comments: 16
Kudos: 33





	The Sharpest Lives

The sea of eventualities.

Everything that is possible, existing and happening in the exact same moment, spawning countless branching choices.

The strongest possible branch starts with Jonathan Reid killing his dear sister, branding his new life with the crimson mark of Cain. He is locked into two paths from then on, two branches that are equally fatalistic in their own way, and lead only to his desolation.

In one path he denies his very nature and turns away from all the delights the night has to offer, dooming himself to an endless, greyed out world, until his will to live crumbles to dust and the end of times is a blessed escape.

In the other he becomes the dragon that takes and takes and takes, drowning the night in crimson until the deep dark weeps bloody tears, for he will forever search for the peaceful life that is doomed to never be.

Mary Reid is the catalyst and when the West End's quarantine gate is completed by nightfall she is unable to walk to her destiny and death.

The sea of eventualities churn as the probabilities fall into place, a new tree rises with unknown paths, branching into the future.  
  
  
Jonathan Reid was born screaming, fighting the world the only way he was able to, openly and without shame.

Jonathan Reid Died silently, with a cut off gasp, his fear forced to remain inside while his lifeblood was drawn out of him.

Jonathan Reid was reborn with a scream that died behind his teeth, he started his unlife with a gasp that was soft as the tearing of a spider's web.

  
No one saw the thing that looked like a man as it rose from the dead.

No one heard how it wailed as it tried to escape from the grave.

The birth is a miraculous process and this was its antithesis.

  
It wasn't Jonathan Reid, not yet, but it **is** \- it's pure desperation fueled by the boiling fear of non-being, the ferocious need to prove one's existence made flesh.  
  
It made its way to the darkest hole it could find, on all fours, like a beast. It crawled over the rotten carcasses, moaning lowly in despair, but not stopping. Was it a person already or just a seed of one, teetering on the brink of being? It wasn't able to talk, to think, to feel anything else than the need to sustain itself... but there were already signs of it being something more.  
  
It crawled into the darkness under the stairs leading into a house, finally being able to relax in the dark. After the fear of non-existence passed, the only thing remaining was the hunger; all-consuming and bone-deep. And here, while it curled into itself from the agony of its emptiness, the mind of one Jonathan Reid started to wake.  
  
The instincts whispered of the hunt, the need to feed demanding action, but the memory of a human mind was strong enough to wrench the fear of non-existence back to the forefront, using it to force the urges down. The shade of Jonathan Reid thought of the unmoving stillness of the snake, how it waits until the right moment to strike, and he thought of the spots of the leopard, that hide it from the eyes of prey.  
  
This was the first sign that the man behind the awakening powers might be more terrifying than any of his new gifts from his hateful mother.  
  
Fledglings don't wait. They do not have the ability to plan. They **hunger**. That's all they are, the primordial hunger, reanimated through the scarce amount of blood their Maker spares them before they are released for their first hunt, all desperation and pure instinct. This man had a mind hard as a diamond and with an edge like Damascus steel. He was already using the instincts, playing off the needs and fears against each other to bend both to his own will.  
  
It started to cry; it was the sound of the pain and the fear of dying, and it was just loud enough to be heard by one of the mortals on the docks.  
  
It was excellent bait.  
  
The hunter was fresh, unskilled and unprepared for the distorted wonders of the night. When he followed the pitiful sound and saw a pale hand reach out from the darkness, he automatically moved to help.  
  
The fledgling waited until the man's fingers almost touched it- and then there was no more need for discipline, no more need to deny its nature. It grasped the man's wrist, with enough force to instantly arouse a bone-deep fear in him and wrenched him first to the ground, then back into the dark under the house. The hunter wanted to scream, he did, but first the force of hitting the hard stones, then the shock of seeing those dead milky eyes froze every sound in his throat.  
  
He became the spectator of his own annihilation.  
  
Here with the prey in its grasp the fledgling finally showed its infantilism, for it tore into the man with reckless abandon, seeking the source of the pulsing red life that circulated from the heart, and was the only colour in its grey world. It found the soft meat under the arm and ate its way to the source, tearing the flesh and cracking the ribs. The frenzied activity only ceased when it got to the heart; it stilled completely and drank until the dawn broke over the horizon.  
  
Here it curled into the cooling corpse, the red blood of the prey hidden in the shadows, and here I have to leave it for the command of the Sun is not something one can ignore.  
  
I wish my Progeny luck.  
  
Throwing down the shackles of fate is a wondrous act.  
  
It opens all paths,  
  
even the ones that are dark  
  
and full of dangers.


End file.
